strenuous to annoy the troops of the enemy, and to drive his eager steed through the midst of flames. Thus the bull-formed Aufidus, who washes the dominions of the Apulian Daunus, rolls along, when he rages and medi tates an horrible deluge to the cultivated lands; when Claudius overthrew with impetuous might the iron ranks of the barbarians, and by mowing down both front and ear strewed the ground, victorious without any loss: hrough you supplying him with troops, you with coun ils, and your own guardian powers. For on that day, when the suppliant Alexandria opened her ports and deerted court, fortune, propitious to you in the third lustrum, has put a happy period to the war, and has ascribed praise and wished-for honour to the victories already obtained. O thou dread guardian of Italy and inperial Rome, thee the Spaniard, till now unconquered, and the Mede, and the Indian, thee the vagrant Scythian admires; thee both the Nile, who conceals his fountainheads, and the Danube; thee the rapid Tigris; thee the monster-bearing ocean, that roars against the remote Britons; thee the region of Gaul fearless of death, and that of hardy Iberia obeys; thee the Sicambrians, who delight in slaughter laying aside their arms, revere.

ODE XV.

TO AUGUSTUS, ON THE RESTORATION OF PEACE. Phoebus chid me, when I was meditating to sing of battles and conquered cities on the lyre; that I might not set my little sails along the Tyrrhenian Sea. Your age, O Cæsar, has both restored plenteous crops to the fields, and has brought back to our Jupiter the standards torn from the proud pillars of the Parthians; and has shut up [the temple] of Janus [founded by] Romulus, now free from war; and has imposed a due discipline upon headstrong Licentiousness, and has extirpated crimes, and recalled the ancient arts; by which the Latin name and strength of Italy have increased, and the fame and majesty of the empire is extended from the sun's western bed to the While Cæsar is guardian of affairs, neither civi

east.

rage nor violence shall disturb tranquillity; nor hatred which forges swords, and sets at variance unhappy states. Not those, who drink of the deep Danube, shall now break the Julian edicts: not the Getæ, not the Seres, nor the perfidious Persians, nor those born upon the river Tanaïs. And let us, both on common and festal days, amidst the gifts of joyous Bacchus, together with our wives and families, having first duly invoked the gods, celebrate, after the manner of our ancestors, with songs accompanied with Lydian pipes, our late valiant commanders; and Troy, and Anchises, and the offspring of benign Venus.

THE BOOK

OF THE

EPODES OF HORACE.

ODE I.

TO MÆCENAS.

Thou wilt go, my friend Mæcenas, with Liburnian gal. leys among the towering forts of ships, ready at thine own [hazard] to undergo any of Cæsar's dangers. What shall I do? To whom life may be agreeable, if you survive; but, if otherwise, burdensome. Whether shall I, at your command, pursue my ease, which cannot be pleasing unless in your company? Or shall I endure this toil with such a courage, as becomes uneffeminate men to bear? I will bear it; and with an intrepid soul follow you, either through the summits of the Alps, and the inhospitable Caucasus, or to the furthest western bay. You may ask how I, unwarlike and infirm, can assist your labours by mine? While I am your companion, I shall be in less anxiety, which takes possession of the absent in a greater measure. As the bird, that has unfledged young, is in a greater dread of serpents' approaches, when they are left;-not that, if she should be present when they came, she could render more help. Not only this, but every other war, shall be cheerfully embraced by me for the hope of your favour: [and this,] not that my ploughs should labour, yoked to a greater number of mine own oxen; or that my cattle before the scorching dogstar should change the Calabrian for the Lucanian pastures: neither that my white country-box should equal the Circæan walls of lofty Tusculum. Your generosity has enriched me enough, and more than enough; I shal

never wish to amass, what either, like the miser Chremes, I may bury in the earth, or luxuriously squander, like a prodigal.

ODE II.

THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

Happy the man, who, remote from business, after the manner of the ancient race of mortals, cultivates his paternal lands with his own oxen, disengaged from every kind of usury; he is neither alarmed by the horrible trump, as a soldier, nor dreads he the angry sea; he shuns both the bar and the proud portals of citizens in power. Wherefore he either weds the lofty poplars to the mature branches of the vine; and, lopping off the useless boughs with his pruning-knife, he ingrafts more fruitful ones; or he takes a prospect of the herds of his lowing cattle, wandering about in a lonely vale; or stores his honey, pressed [from the combs], in clean vessels; or shears his tender sheep. Or, when autumn has lifted up in the fields his head adorned with mellow fruits, how does he rejoice, while he gathers the grafted pears, and the grape that vies with the purple, with which he may recompense thee, O Priapus, and thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintry season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting toils: or spreads his thin nets with the smooth pole, as a snare for the voracious thrushes; or catches in his gin the timorous hare, or that stranger the crane, pleasing rewards [for his labour]. Amongst such joys as these, who does not forget those mischievous anxieties, which are the property of love. But if a chaste wife, assisting on her part [in the management] of the house, and beloved children, (such as is the Sabine, or the sun-burned spouse of the industrious Apulian,) piles up the sacred hearth with old wood, just at the approach

of her weary husband; and, shutting up the fruitful cattle in the woven hurdles, milks dry their distended udders: and, drawing this year's wine out of a well-seasoned cask, prepares the unbought collation: not the Lucrine oysters could delight me more, nor the turbot, nor the scar, should the tempestuous winter drive any from the eastern floods to this sea: not the turkey, nor the Asiatic wild fowl, can come into my stomach more agreeably, than the olive gathered from the richest branches from the trees, or the sorrel that loves the meadows, or mallows salubrious for a sickly body, or a lamb slain at the feast of Terminus, or a kid rescued from the wolf. Amidst these dainties, how it pleases one to see the well-fed sheep hastening home! to see the weary oxen, with drooping neck, dragging the inverted ploughshare! and slaves, the test of a rich family, ranged about the smiling household gods! When Alfius the usurer, now on the point of turning countryman, had said this, he collected in all his money on the Ides ..nd endeavours to put it out again at the Calends.

ODE III.

TO MÆCENAS.

If any person any time with an impious hand has broken his aged father's neck, let him eat garlic, more baneful than hemlock. Oh! the hardy bowels of the mowers! What poison is this that rages in my entrails? Has viper's blood, infused in these herbs, deceived me? Or has Canidia dressed this baleful food? When Medea, beyond all the [other] Argonauts, admired their handsome leader, she anointed Jason with this, as he was going to tie the untried yoke on the bulls: and having revenged herself on [Jason's] mistress, by making her presents besmeared with this, she flew away on her winged dragon. Never id the steaming influence of any constellation so raging is this rest upon the thirsty Appulia: neither did the gift [of Dejanira] burn hotter upon the shoulders of laborious Hercules. But if ever, facetious Mæcenas, you should have a desire for any such stuff again, I wish that your girl may oppose her hand to your kiss, and lie at the furthest part of the bed.